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benpadiah
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 Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:59 pm Post subject: hmm. Solipsism... |
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Solipsism is first recorded with the Greek presocratic sophist Gorgias (c. 483–375 BC) who is quoted by the Roman sceptic Sextus Empiricus as having stated:
1) Nothing exists
2) Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it, and
3) Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others
Epistemological solipsism is generally identified with statements 2 and 3 from Gorgias; metaphysical solipsism believes all three. |
-source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
I'd be interesting in discussing this point of view.
any takers?
-ben
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Revan
a serious Sith!
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:07 am Post subject: |
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Now this is a favorite topic of mine.
Solipsism is interesting. It is one of the few (if not perhaps the only) views that are completely internally consistant.
"Cogito ergo sum" is the quintessential "first premise". One could argue that it's the equivalent of a "point" in geometry.
The question arises, however: we all WANT to draw another point so that we can have a "line", and another point to have a "plane"... but where and how do we draw that second point when it seems near impossible to argue anything else beyond "I think therefore I am."?
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benpadiah
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:17 am Post subject: |
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hmm, good points, Darth Revan.
A Hebrew scholar would expound that the point above (Jechida, the Greater Will, Zeir Anpin, the super-ego, etc.) orbits around the point within (Chiah, the lesser will, Arich Anpin, the id, etc.). Even these are exterior and superior to the "point" (neschamah, ka, chi, etc.), the "plane" (ruach, ba, aura, etc.), and the "shape" (nefesh, spirit, dissolution of self into clear light, etc.). According to Ha QBLH, it was inside the cosmic emanation that the "contraction" (tzimtzum) occured, and this separated the "waters above" (the psychic, mental, astral, etc.) from the "waters below" (the qliphoth, or shattered "shells," quantum matter-energy vortices, etc.) by the first emanation, "ChKMh" (Wisdom) to follow forth from the crown of God's idea to create. This emanation was both a sphere and a line and a point, in one. But I digress.
-ben
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benpadiah
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:19 am Post subject: |
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Several strategies to alleviate the tendency toward the solipsism syndrome in artificial environments are discussed in NASA's Space Settlements : A Design Study which proposes designs for Space colonization:
1. A large geometry, in which people can see far beyond the "theater stage" of the vicinity to a view which is overwhelmingly visible.
2. Something must exist beyond each human's manipulation because people learn to cope with reality when reality is different from their imagination. If the reality is the same as the imagination, there is no escape from falling into solipsism. In extraterrestrial communities, everything can be virtually controlled. In fact, technically nothing should go beyond human control even though this is psychologically bad; however, some amount of "unpredictability" can be built in within a controllable range. One way to achieve this is to generate artificial unpredictability by means of a table of random numbers. Another way is to allow animals and plants a degree of freedom and independence from human planning. Both types of unpredictability must have a high visibility to be effective. This high visibility is easier to achieve in a macrogeometry which allows longer lines of sight.
3. Something must exist which grows. Interactive processes generate new patterns which cannot be inferred from the information contained in the old state. This is not due to randomness but rather to different amplification by mutual causal loops. It is important for each person to feel able to contribute personally to something which grows, that the reality often goes in a direction different from expectation, and finally that what each person takes care of (a child, for example) may possess increased wisdom, and may grow into something beyond the individual in control. From this point of view, it is important personally to raise children, and to grow vegetables and trees with personal care, not by mechanical means. It is also desirable to see plants and animals grow, which is facilitated by a long line of sight.
4. It is important to have "something beyond the horizon" which gives the feeling that the world is larger than what is seen. |
-source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism_syndrome
LOL! Cool!
-ben
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Revan
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:33 am Post subject: |
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Those are good strategies for dealing with solipsism.
I am not solipsist in my outlook in life, but I suppose I hold a fondness for philosophical solipsism... not in that I think it's right but more in that I'm not sure how man best escapes from the dilemma expounded by Descartes, as he really did not seem to do that himself.
For those that are not familiar with Descartes, I'll exerpt part of the Wikipedia article on him:
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Descartes is often regarded as the first modern thinker to provide a philosophical framework for the natural sciences as these began to develop. In his Meditations on First Philosophy he attempts to arrive at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt. To achieve this, he employs a method called methodological skepticism: he doubts any idea that can be doubted.
He gives the example of dreaming: in a dream, one's senses perceive stimuli that seem real, but do not actually exist. Thus, one cannot rely on the data of the senses as necessarily true. Or, perhaps an "evil demon" exists: a supremely powerful and cunning being who sets out to try to deceive Descartes from knowing the true nature of reality. Given these possibilities, what can one know for certain?
Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single principle: if I am being deceived, then surely "I" must exist. Most famously, this is known as cogito ergo sum, ("I think, therefore I am"). (These words do not appear in the Meditations, although he had written them in his earlier work Discourse on Method).
Note; Descartes was also sceptical of memory, as that has also been known to be manipulated, and can be doubted, so the 'cogito' argument can only apply to the present. The phrase is therefore more accurately (but less famously) translated as; "I am thinking, therefore I exist"
Therefore, Descartes concludes that he can be certain that he exists. But in what form? He perceives his body through the use of the senses; however, these have previously been proven unreliable. So Descartes concludes that the only undoubtable knowledge is that he is a thinking thing. Thinking is his essence as it is the only thing about him that cannot be doubted. Descartes defines "thought" (cogitatio) as "what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it". Thinking is thus every activity of a person of which he is immeditately conscious.
To further demonstrate the limitations of the senses, Descartes proceeds with what is known as the Wax Argument. He considers a piece of wax: his senses inform him that it has certain characteristics, such as shape, texture, size, color, smell, and so forth. When he brings the wax towards a flame, these characteristics change completely. However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still a piece of wax, even though the data of the senses inform him that all of its characteristics are different. Therefore, in order to properly grasp the nature of the wax, he cannot use the senses: he must use his mind. Descartes concludes:
"Thus what I thought I had seen with my eyes, I actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in my mind."
In this manner, Descartes proceeds to construct a system of knowledge, discarding perception as unreliable and instead admitting only deduction as a method. Halfway through the Meditations, he offers an ontological proof of a benevolent God (through both the ontological argument and trademark argument). Because God is benevolent, he can have some faith in the account of reality his senses provide him, for God has provided him with a working mind and sensory system and does not desire to deceive him; however, this is a contentious argument, as his very notion of a benevolent God from which he developed this argument is easily subject to the same kind of doubt as his perceptions. From this supposition, however, he finally establishes the possibility of acquiring knowledge about the world based on deduction and perception. In terms of epistemology therefore, he can be said to have contributed such ideas as a rigorous conception of foundationalism and the possibility that reason is the only reliable method of attaining knowledge, as others said before him, though not as clearly as he did, and the rationalist answer to scepticism which other rationalists have elaborated on.
In Descartes' system, knowledge takes the form of ideas, and philosophical investigation is the contemplation of these ideas. This concept would influence subsequent internalist movements as Descartes' epistemology requires that a connection made by conscious awareness will distinguish knowledge from falsity. As a result of his Cartesian doubt, he sought for knowledge to be "incapable of being destroyed", in order to construct an unshakeable ground from which all other knowledge can be based on. The first item of unshakeable knowledge that Descartes argues for is the aforementioned cogito, or thinking thing.
Descartes also wrote a response to skepticism about the existence of the external world. He argues that sensory perceptions come to him involuntarily, and are not willed by him. They are external to his senses, and according to Descartes, this is evidence of the existence of something outside of his mind, and thus, an external world. Descartes goes on to show that the things in the external world are material by arguing that since God would not deceive him as to the ideas that are being transmitted, and that God has given him the "propensity" to believe that such ideas are caused by material things. Sceptics have responded to Descartes' proof for the external world by positing a brain in a vat thought experiment, in that Descartes' brain may be connected up to a machine which simulates all of these perceptions. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes
I suppose the question boils down to whether one believes Descartes, or anyone since, has actually gotten out the mess.
Perhaps one could argue that the second "point" I spoke of is faith, faith in the notion that there is existence outside as well as in.
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benpadiah
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| Revan wrote: |
| the second "point" I spoke of is faith |
if one is presented with a clear view of reality, one does not need "faith."
I wouldn't posit as the second "point" that connects the line from the interior sense of self to the exterior empirical reality as "faith" since this supposes that the mind confined within has no clear view of the exterior empircal reality, which is, quite obviously, not the case. Even an unborn baby has some consciousness of the world beyond it's transluscent amneonic sac. Even someone born deaf and blind can learn speech, and even someone in a coma can dream. Therefore we have all these as evidence, accumulated since the time of DesCartes, proving that to all but a "metaphysical" solispsist (points one two AND three as opposed to only points two and three, above, initial post) there is an exterior, verifiable material reality. At this point (as soon as "metaphysics" gets mentioned) they start throwing out the word "belief" to apply in the opposite sense: to someone who uses Ockham's Razor to shear away everything but their own radical doubt. This would change DesCarte's "cogito" premise to "I think I am not, therefore, I am not." Of course, this holds up no better than its converse, and if we transverse it it breaks apart still further into: "I do not think, therefore I am not." But then, what about rocks and clouds, which, argueably, do not think, yet are. So, we see, no matter which way you bend DesCartes it will ALWAYS defy rationalism to accept his "cogito" premise en soi and por soi, a priori and a posteriori, etc.
It is folly to say: "I do not think I am thinking." It is wisdom to say: "I am not thinking."
-ben
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BRobbins
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:52 am Post subject: |
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This is only semi-pertainant to the topic at hand here, but I do think it explains a more complex and larger perspective to the matter. Hopefully in a simple way. (honestly, someo f the opinion/education points are probably innacurate... the statements about the history is all accurate though)
I wrote this some time ago, btw... so If it doesnt seem to meche with the conversation, that's why.
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Quantum Theory: Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love descartes
By Ben Robbins, June 2006
As one of the most influential philosophers of human history, Descartes has had a impact upon modern thought process, which few truly know. A simple quote of his, from days of antiquity, was simple and unapologetic, but almost unthinkingly crucial for the human race to evolve as it has today. He wrote the words, "I think, therefore I am" (Cogito ergo sum)
This is the notion that placed in stone, our humanistic belief in soul removed from body, as opposed to a race bio-machinery.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, this belief has persisted ever since within advancing societies. Considiring that any cold-logicist for the last 2000 years, would consider neuro-synapse firings, and the cycle of cause and effect, to be the only impetus for our conscious desires, actions, and thoughts. This scientific view has held the free-floating, autonomous, consciousness of humans is just a trick of the biological functions of the brain. Sigmund Freud believed that ego, or a persons self-image, was caused by a build up in the synapses of the brain. That this build-up, tended to change brain function after the pre-cognative ages of 1-3 years, resulting in the ability to manifest an internal illusion of consciousness.
Science and myself, until recently, have persisted that this was the non-romantic reality that no one wants to hear...
In the 1970's, and some even earlier, a great number of brilliant scientists, began to study and observe Heisenberg's uncertainty principles, using high-tech, new-age equipment. To keep things short, they were able to observe and prove scientifically that the path and form a photon takes, when projected, is influenced by the expectations of the experiment's observers. That the photon was both forms of energy dispersion at all times. Important aspect of this being that the free-WILL of the observer, as changing which reality manifested...
Many other philosophical and Intellectual persuits, paralelled the same results, in actuality if not only in essence. Schroedinger's cat sucks, but the rest are beautiful examples. What einstein called "spooky action at a distance" in pessimism of quantum theory for explaining what he could not, was proven some years later. The realization of "ZPF" or zero point field, and in conjunction the physical impossibility of reaching a temperature of absolute zero, also lend hands to the legitimacy of quantum theory. If you have any intrest in this, I suggest that you research for yourself. There are some brilliant people out there that can explain this much better than myself.
This said, a much better essayist would have already parlayed you into a much more harmonic meld of the concepts of consciousness and quantum theory, that easily joined as one. But please persist, as I continue to join the topics at hand... 
Experiments were done with lizards and rats, that began to prove that the brain was not the storage system for sub-conscious thoughts and instincts. They many times over destroyed and mutilated the brains of these creatures, during lab testing. They electrocuted, severed in pieces, and even reversed the brains of the specimens, and were amazed at the results. They found that if even a small piece of the brain were allowed to persist living, and function within the animal, that there was absolutely no effect on the instinctive and naturistic actions of the animal. Further speculation and testing lends creedence to the probability that information of the sub-conscious psyche is not stored in brain tissue, but recalled from what is called the quantum foam of the universe.
With the quantum collective (foam) and the realization of concientious influence over cause and effect, we are coming full circle to the days of Descartes. What he knew in his heart then, we know know through science. This opens up a whole can of worms, now that we can realise, without doubt, that all things can be manipulated through will and belief... You can make your own assertations and theories from here, without my philosophies clouding what your heart tells you what is correct.
(I would have written more, and more precisely, but I need a fucking cigarette... This is not intended to convince anyone of anything, anyway. More to inspire insight into what may become the crowning achievement in science of the next 50 yrs)
Thank you
IAO, LVX - Ben
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benpadiah
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| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:57 am Post subject: |
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| BRobbins wrote: |
| realise, without doubt, that all things can be manipulated through will and belief. |
ay there's the rub, B!
if you lack doubt, this does not mean you automatically possess belief, tho.
In my opinion the only thing that determines an MK-servitor sleeper agent from the King fo Kings is that one follows blind belief and the other understood knowledge.
-ben
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benpadiah
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| Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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is it possible we are someone else's dream, even if that someone else is not necessarily God Himself?
What do I mean by this? Hmm...
I believe "our past lovers made us who we are."
I therefore say: "I am nothing but a dream in the mind of the one I love."
Now, it is more acceptable to the ego to dimminish itself before a mortal loved one than to accept eternity as one. Hence: everyone gets to get married, but not everyone is a Priest, or, shortened, priests can't marry.
So we say, it is more acceptable to believe we are all dreams in one another's minds, and that only the combination of all of our dream-selves is, itself, the dream in the mind of the sleeping God.
But then, ask yourself, how can God sleep? The answer is obvious: with one eye open. And so we have the basic, light and dark duality expressed as the mortality of that which occurs in sleep, and the shared immortality of what we create while awake.
And if we look around this is closer to what we see is true:
One of us may be awake while another is asleep, so too may one of us create while the other dreams. This is true between people as individuals, and between individual people and God, but it is not true between God and the collective of all people, both those whose lives are like the dreams of the sleeping dead, and those who are dead already existing only in spirit. This is not because of a lowering down or dualizing of God. This is because there is duality in man.
Just as, between one man and another, one may be asleep and dreaming while the other is awake and working, so too can the entire collective consciousness of mankind be either awake or asleep to God, while God is either asleep or awake to it.
And of course, this example of God's relationship is not applicable only to men, only to people, only to planet earth or her solar system, etc. but to the entire universe down to a quantum level to the full extent to which duality resonnates.
Everywhere there is duality there is trinity over time, and alternation of one and another opposites with one another in the present, first one, then the other, then the first, and again the second.
And, of course, so long as this duality persists our own existence is a dream. However, should we wish to awaken, to become God, then we must take up the "Great Work" of choosing our will, and allow what we will to guide our way in times of darkness, and to let us rest assured during the periods of toil that there will be a time when we are all reunited in eternity, both those of us living and those of us dead, both those of us sleeping whose dreams are awake, and those of us awake, who work to shelter and protect those who are asleep and dreaming us.
Of course, once we achieve the state of conscious Godhood, we forget this duality, our will asserts itself, and even the "great work" itself becomes as ephemeral as a dream. This is because the duality is of man, between awake and asleep, and of people, alive and dead, and between quanta and the universe, so too between all these things and God. Again, there is no duality in God, and so all duality itself is only a single, combined opposition before God.
When God is alive, awake, at work creating, then all of creation is spirit, asleep and dreaming.
When God is dead, asleep, dreaming us into existence, then all creation is either dead or alive, either asleep or awake, and either at work or dreaming.
God is One.
All opposed are another.
-ben
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